Apple May Be on the Verge of Kneecapping the Cable Industry

I have a theory… the new apple tablet device that has been rumored for quite some time.  Will not only do everything that the iPod does, but will also do everything the Kindle does (but better) and everything the Nook does (but better) and everything that….

It feels like convergence is here.  I watched a football game on my iPhone while trying to get to sleep the other day.  I would have loved to have a device with 2x screen size.  I would love a tablet that allowed my eyes (quickly getting old) to read with a little less strain.

Apple is working with the content providers just as they did with the record labels pre-itunes. Once you have the content, the device makes sense.

Apple may be on the verge of gaining two key television network agreements, according to The Wall Street Journal. Specifically, CBS and Walt Disney DIS which runs ABC are said to be considering a proposal by Apple to offer a subscription-based TV service over the Internet.

How would you like a portable TV that allows you to time shift and watch your shows anytime anywhere?  The tablet could be many things and also a portable TV.  A good one.  A good one with top tier content, not the limited stuff you find on a Media Center PC.  I checked out the media center content 4 years after getting my first media center PC and it was pretty disappointing.  An apple tablet that worked with the Apple TV device much the way a Slingbox works with your devices is not a stretch.

Have you noticed the number of portable (over the air) TV’s that have come out across the past 6 months?   Coincidence?  Why is Comcast scrambling to offer your content in unique ways?

Kindle was able to get a flat fee, all you can eat wireless plan.  It it possible that Apple is going to be offering the same?  Will this need 4G?  If so, we are just about there.

A lot of questions.  I can’t wait until the answers start rolling in.

via Apple May Be on the Verge of Kneecapping the Cable Industry — Seeking Alpha.

Voxie iPhone app Review

Voxie iPhone application Review

I downloaded a new iPhone app that many will find useful.  When you are on the road, and lacking a writing instrument, you probably wish you had a simple way to record your thoughts about a topic.  Better yet, you might be collaborating on a project and wished that you were able to share the thoughts with your tone coming across.  Email and text messages don’t convey an author’s tone very well.  Without speaking to someone directly your true message might be lost.  I often ask people to read something as if the person was upset with them and then read the same message as if the person was happy and/or proud of them.    By applying a tone to a message it will carry a completely different meaning.


Voxie iPhone App Review
Voxie iPhone App Review

A new iPhone application called Voxie is able to handle simple recordings and gives you the ability to share those recordings very easily.  In fact, you are able to categorize the recordings that you make.  For many, this will be a very nice feature that is lacking in the basic voice recorder that comes with your iPhone.

One cool feature is the ability to sync the voice recording with a transcription service.  For anyone who has ever had a message transcribed to text, you will understand that this is not an easy feat.  I included a sample of a recording that I made below.  Further down, you will see the actual transcription of that message.  It is often humorous what comes out.  All in all, the app is very nice and should replace my $40 Olympus voice recorder.  The pricing of $1.99 makes it something that most will find worth trying out.

Try Voxie for the iPhone

Transcription test.

Original message:

This is a review of the Voxie iPhone application that is referred to as the Voxie Pro Recorder.

The company that made the app is named bottle rocket and they bill the application as “the premier voice recorder app for the iphone”.

The price point is spot on at $1.99 and makes it attractive enough for anyone in need of the service to give it a try.  There is an extra fee for the transcription service and they provide a 7 day free trial with the app.  The trial is for a service called  quicktate.com.

There are some very nice sharing functions and one of the more simple, and useful, features of the app is the ability to categorize a recording.  Very nice, especially if this will be a multi-user app.

Transcribed via quicktate.com

This is a review of the Voxie iPhone application that is referred to as the Voxie Pro Recorder. The company that made the ap is named Bottle Rocket. And they bill the application as the premier voice recorder ap for the iPhone. The price point is spot on at $1.99. It makes it attractive enough for any one in need of the service to give it a try. There’s an extra fee for the transcription service, and they provide a seven day free trial with the ap. The trial is for a service called Quicktate.  There are some very nice hearing functions and one of the more simple and useful features of the app is the ability to categorize the recording. Very nice, especially if this will be a multi-user app.

As you can see, the transcription was excellent.

Good luck with Voxie if you choose this very nice iPhone voice recording application.

Top Craigslist Cities

Top cities on Craigslist.

A recent project caused me to locate some Craigslist stats. Here is one that many of you will find useful toward your own marketing efforts. I am not suggesting that you run out and spam Craigs, but if you have a product, or service, that isn’t fixed to a local area, you might want to give a couple of posts to high volume cities a try.

Craig Newmark - Craigslist Founder
Craig Newmark - Craigslist Founder

There are certain cities that are large for obvious reasons. Some are simply due to the population, but others are strong due to the roll out of Craigslist. You can probably tell by the list that Craigslist was founded in San Francisco.

The top cities on Craigslist, as reported by Alexa, are listed below.

Where people go on Craigslist.org:
7.5% sfbay.craigslist.org
6.6% newyork.craigslist.org
5.6% losangeles.craigslist.org
3.2% seattle.craigslist.org
3.0% washingtondc.craigslist.org
2.8% chicago.craigslist.org
2.6% sandiego.craigslist.org
2.6% phoenix.craigslist.org
2.5% boston.craigslist.org
2.2% atlanta.craigslist.org
2.2% portland.craigslist.org
2.1% dallas.craigslist.org
2.0% lasvegas.craigslist.org
1.9% orangecounty.craigslist.org
1.7% miami.craigslist.org
1.6% denver.craigslist.org
Continue reading Top Craigslist Cities

Adcenter Desktop Download

MSN / Live / Bing / Yahoo

Take your pick at what they should call the Adcenter Desktop client.  One thing is clear… we should all be prepared for the changing landscape that is coming after the integration of Microsoft and Yahoo’s platforms.  The combined entity will be a player behind the behemoth known as Google.  Depending on your niche, you may find that the Adcenter network performs better than the Google network.  Test for yourself. If you are searching for the Adcenter Desktop download, use the following link.

Microsoft Adcenter Desktop Download
Microsoft Adcenter Desktop Download

https://maf.adcenter.microsoft.com/desktop/setup.exe

Good luck using the Adcenter client app.  Be sure you are positioned properly with your PPC when Yahoo is integrated with Microsoft. PS: As expected, the Adcenter Desktop Application is available for PC only (at this time).

Matt Cutts on SEO

This video has been getting a good deal of press in the SEO community.  Matt Cutts is certainly the most visible and well recognized Googler in the webmaster community.  Officially, he is head of the webspam team at Google.    Matt is an early on Google employee who loves what he does.  If you have the opportunity to see Matt speak, you will usually take something away from it that you can use, or stop using.

If you have 45 minutes….

A Clever Link Builder

If you own a website, it is almost certain that you have received a request to swap links, or add a link to someone else’s site.  Generally, the link request will come from the site owner, their SEO, or a pure link building company. If you haven’t already, you will ignore most requests. Occasionally, there will be a request that comes across that makes you think it would be a good resource for your visitors. I received one today. If I hadn’t recognized the name of the site they were generating links for, I might not have looked any further.

Some of the request will open your eyes to creative techniques that you can use to benefit your own site(s).  I wouldn’t recommend an outright lie like the offender below, but clever use of domains can help.

The sender claimed to be an assistant at a library and was finding resources for an “educational series”. The “local library” is either brand

The real Rhode Island Library System is located at oslri.org: http://www.oslri.org/libsites.html

The supposed Rhode Island Site resolves to a hosting company:

Fake Rhode Island Library
Fake Rhode Island Library

A couple other signs that will tell the story

  • The site was registered May 18, 2009
    I would think that the R.I. lilbrary system probably had their act together prior to then.
  • The domain registration is private
    Probably not something that a public entity would do.  In fact, the real Rhode Island library system has their registration information available:

    Rhode Island Library
    Rhode Island Library

=================================================

Subject I wanted to suggest a resource for your page.
hide details 4:35 PM (2 hours ago)
Hi!

My name is Helen Carter, I am an assistant at a local library, I am responsible for finding resources for our educational series. This week we will be discussing mold and the dangers it may pose. While searching for articles I found your page (http://www.wnyhandyman.com/mold-removal.php) which was very helpful. Thanks so much 🙂

I noticed you missed a great page on mold: http://www.gardenbuildingsdirect.co.uk/Article/the-fungus-among-us. It looks like a fairly good resource, which includes a lot of supplemental resources. I really like this page because it is a simple read, and doesn’t use a lot of technical terms like the medical journals do. I certainly plan on using it in my discussion

Have a wonderful day 🙂

-Helen

===================================================

No thank you, Helen!

Google Voice = Click to Call Platform

Google Voice = click to call?
Google Voice = click to call?

Google does some interesting things.   Some might think that Google is  pulling an Ebay (the Skype purchase) and rolling out Google voice, but they are not. I have been playing around with Google voice for a couple of days and have quickly come to realize that this is a fantastic platform for a click to call campaign.  I am running a click to call campaign that runs at DirectoryM and I couldn’t help but feel that the campaign management interface has many similar features with Voice.

Click to call is something that has been talked up for years.  Imagine that you could include a call icon in your Adwords ad to capture the person searching for your product or service.  With Voice, Google has a platform, the phone numbers and the ability to track campaigns. One of the beauties of Voice is that Google does not have to ask you to change anything that you currently do.  They can assign a random phone number, connect to the line of your choice and charge you for that customer action.  In the end, everyone wins…maybe.

Is this why Google bought up dark fibre a few years back?

In the end, Google wants to continue to grow search share and is always looking for avenues to display more ads.  With Voice, they are probably moving toward the front of the line of a potential shift in ad models.   I would expect that we will soon hear about the ability to add a click to call icon in an Adwords ad.

Bing.com doing some things nicely

I must say that I rolled my eyes at the Bing announcement. However, there is a feature that is pretty useful. If you are ever in search of a video, you will find that their video preview is pretty nice. My son watches a lot of Nerf videos on Youtube.com. By going to bing.com he can watch everything in one place with the mouseover preview. Good job MSFT!

Take a look at the video results: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=nerf+gun&go=&form=QBVR

Parents, don’t let your kids do this unsupervised and please turn up the ‘safe search’ settings.

I also have to say that the Bird’s Eye view maps have been a must visit site for me when searching for real estate. The birds eye is a much nicer view than the satellite view from the other providers and provides a great overview of a neighborhood.

Keep it up Microsoft. You are certainly chasing the leader right now, but innovation will outweigh online loyalty every day.

Wolfram|Alpha a Big Change

If you haven’t been to Wolfram Alpha yet, you need to give it a try.  For all that Google is, Wolfram Alpha has a place on the web.  This “engine” is likely the biggest change we have seen since the rise of Wikipedia.  Wolfram Alpha will take hold in a way that Cuill.com wished it could have.  Remember Cuill??  Big PR, with an also ran product!  Wolfram Alpha should spread like wildfire with word of mouth like you are reading here.

Wolfram Alpha Information Engine
Wolfram Alpha Information Engine
WolframAlpha is interesting, and useful.  The tag line is Computational Knowledge engine.  It is essentially Yahoo Answers without having to wait for an answer.  Not every answer, but when you look to Yahoo answers, you will see that most of what is being asked can be answered by Wolfram Alpha.

Mix Answers with Google with WikiPedia with Google Sets and you have some sense of what Wolfram Alpha brings.

As an investor, I am often querying for stock prices at points in time.  WolframAlpha.com does that wonderfully.  Simply search GLW 2/1/2002 and you will see what I mean.

I anticipate this being a very popular site.  Perhaps not the next Google, but certainly a player in the “search” space.  We are often querying for specific information.  WolframAlpha brings that to us and offers up additional data sets to add flavor to what I am after.

Give me a Wolfram Alpha iPhone App and I will be a walking information station!

Wolfram|Alpha.